Exhibitions & Events

 

The latest exhibition as part of the MASTERS cycle in Spectra Art Space has been structured around the visionary concept of Ryszard Winiarski, formulated and implemented by him in the 1970s as the so-called “Game Parlours” (“Salony Gier”). In the context of the artist’s earlier persistent explorations in the area of system and chance art, “Games” appeared in 1972 for the first time, as a manifestation of the necessary synthesis of rules. Winiarski indicated that the idea emerged from the need to overcome misunderstandings and demonstrate the process of creating his paintings: 

I struggled with the people’s manner of perception of my works, which was contradictory to my intentions. At a few exhibitions, I would present boards next to the paintings and write down the rules of the games like a maniac to explain the programme. Their aim was to make people realise that there was something else behind the paintings, something that prevents an emotional reception. I figured out that I had to make an important turn, that overcomplicating the programme would not lead to conquering new areas of art.

 

 In the “Game Parlour”, the viewer no longer had to rely on the structure of the paintings to guess the rules from which they resulted. Winiarski proposed his public to actively participate in the process. He enabled them to build visual objects similar to those of the artist’s. The painting fields which earlier had been artistically arranged were replaced by plain boards, places for games.

The exhibition as part of the Ryszard Winiarski | Spectra Art Space Masters cycle invokes a historical event from Kunstcentrum Badhuis in Gorinchem (1976), which fully presented the artistic novelty. The exhibition showed seven games designed by the artist, which were constructed based on the classical canon of board games, both strategic ones and games of chance. After forty years of the presentation in the Netherlands, the comlete set of historical boards became part of Anna and Jerzy Starak’s collection, forming the core of the exhibition in Spectra Art Space. The major role at both the Warsaw exhibition of 2016 and the Gorinchem exhibition of 1976 is to be played by viewers, who – apart from participating in the process of constructing art objects, can derive pleasure from playing games.

 

Ryszard Winiarski | Spectra Art Space MASTERS exhibition is open to the public in Spectra building, at ul. Bobrowiecka 6 in Warsaw, from 24 September 2016 to 22 January 2017, on Saturdays and Sundays, from w 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., and from Monday to Friday, from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.

On the first Saturday of a month at 11 p.m. a curator will show you around the exhibition and Anna and Jerzy Starak’s collection.

Free admission.